


been everywhere with you

by lil0urry



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, M/M, because of halloween idk, friendly shipper ghosts, ghosts who meddle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-20 23:56:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2447795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lil0urry/pseuds/lil0urry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there is a ghost who needs a home and they find one in the bright, green-eyed boy named Harry Styles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	been everywhere with you

**Author's Note:**

> uh, this is super weird and super stupid, I guess. but I wrote it and I'm embarrassed but I like it? so here it is. it's also my first 1D thingy.
> 
> it's written in second person (I know that bothers people but I couldn't write it any other way so here's a warning).
> 
> not beta'ed, not britpicked. I hope this is bearable.

You are a ghost. But it’s okay. It isn’t a sad or bad thing, honestly. You’re just a ghost, and you drift, and sometimes it’s lonely. But like I said, it’s okay. You meet others like you once in a while, and people who can see you. They’re honestly pleasant surprises, but they bring with them a feeling of lingering emptiness afterward. And you remember you need to find a home.

More often than not, ghosts choose houses to haunt. They make houses or certain places their homes and get tethered to them, permanently. But others, others make their home in people. You don’t like it much, if you’re being honest. People are unpredictable and cause pain. And nobody knows what happens when your home dies. You’ve been warned by others that are tied to humans to never do it. But when you find this boy, you can’t help it.

He’s got huge green eyes and messy curls and has fallen down from the swing and scraped his knees. He’s so tiny, and he’s crying, and he’s alone. His mum hasn’t noticed the cries of her baby, but you do. You kneel down next to him and place your small hand on his knee, hoping to ease the pain.

That’s when he looks up, and he sees you. He can see you and he can feel you and that’s special. He’s looking at you in the eyes and you feel as if an electric current has struck you and it happens. You’ve found your home. It’s too good to be true, you think, as the boy wipes the tears and snot that had been running down his face. He sniffles and manages a smile. An overwhelming feeling surges through you, and god. It’s almost as if you’re alive again.

“Hi, love,” you whisper, pulling your lips into a grin. “Are you okay?”

The boy nods, his smile stretching his face and showing off his lack of two front teeth. “ ‘Mokay now,” he says. “ ‘M Harry.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Harry,” you say, stretching your hand to hold his and help him up.

“It’s nice to meet you too! What’s your name?” he asks.

You feel your eyes widen as you start panicking. You’ve never been asked that before, and you don’t remember anything from before… before you were a ghost. Harry’s staring at you with big eyes, expecting an answer, and you don’t really think before you blurt out, “Shakespeare.” You don’t even remember where you’ve heard the name before, maybe something you read or overheard before, but you like it. It’s odd, like you. 

He giggles. “Shakespeare? That’s a funny name.”

You smile again. “Yeah, yeah it is.”

“I like it!” Harry exclaims, and you’re proud of yourself, though you’re not sure why. You want to make this boy happy, and you suppose it’s how it should be. He’s your home after all, you feel it in your very soul. 

It’s not weird, talking to Harry all afternoon and going to his house with him. It’s not weird at all as you watch him grow up and go to school with him and sleep in his bed every night. You play with him all day and you can feel it, Harry loves you, and you feel whole. You can feel yourself growing alongside him, and it’s weird. You’ve never seen yourself but you had never assumed you were a child and that you could grow up. But it fits, and it’s perfect.

Harry’s smart and Harry’s funny and Harry’s beautiful. You don’t think you’ve ever been this happy, not even before. He tells his parents about you, and you expect them to freak out, but they smile and roll their eyes. It’s weird to you, but you feel a terrible pang in your chest when you hear Anne and Des talking in the living room later that night. 

“Oh, it’s normal for a kid his age to have imaginary friends,” Anne had said. “He’ll grow out of it.”

You cry that night, and hide yourself in Harry’s closet. You will yourself to become invisible, and when he looks for you, he can’t find you. It hurts your soul a lot, it’s heartbreak without having a beating heart, it’s feeling your blood burning with sadness without having any blood. And you wonder what will it feel like if he does grow out of it.

It happens when Harry is twelve years old. He’s just gotten home from school on the odd day you didn’t go with him and finds you sitting on his bed. You’re reading one of his favorite books, one about a kid who is a wizard and is named like your home and you love it. You smile at him brightly when he walks into the room, but your expression quickly crumbles when you see his eyes are red-rimmed and his face has gone all blotchy.

“Harry?” you say hesitantly before the boy starts crying again and flings himself into the bed. “Harry, love, what’s wrong?”

“G-Gemma says you’re n-not real,” he wails. “Says I’m t-too old for imaginary friends.”

You feel tears welling up inside your eyes, hot and heavy. “No, Hazza, I’m here. I’m real.”

“You’re not,” Harry says, digging his face into his pillow. “You’re just--just a figment of my imagination.”

And you feel it. You can feel it to the core of your very being the exact second Harry stops believing. You feel yourself fading, and it’s painful. It’s definitely the most excruciating pain you have ever felt in your entire existence. You start crying, trying to relieve the agony that’s ripping you apart, but it’s useless. You feel Harry stop seeing you, stops hearing you. And you don’t want to _be_ anymore. So you run. 

You run out of Harry’s house, slamming the doors in your way, surprised at this strength and corporealness you’ve never felt before. You run, run, run out of Harry’s house, out of Holmes Chapel, out of Chesire, and you wish you could stop. But you can’t, and it doesn’t hurt, and your breathing doesn’t change and for the first time in a lot of years you wish you were human. You wish you could hurt in a physical way, in any way, other than this. You watch the sun set and the moon rise and the sky change as a new day starts and it’s ugly. It’s so ugly how the world can be so beautiful and keep on going while you wish you didn’t exist.

And god, above all, you wish, you _wish_ you could stay away from the Styles household, but can’t. Because Harry is your home, and you feel lost and empty and awful without him close. So you find yourself back there, a month later, staring at the front door of the home of your home and watching, watching, watching. You watch as Harry goes to school, as he goes on without you. You watch as Harry gets new friends and does his homework and watches telly and reads. It still hurts, but you love the boy, so you settle by sitting on his window every night, listening to him sing so beautifully and it eases the pain a bit. Just a bit. And yeah, you can touch other stuff now, since That Night, and it’s a nice improvement, or so you think.

You still care about Harry, so deeply and wonderfully, and you want him to be happy. You still watch over him, finding ways to remind him of his homework, taking his books out of the bag and putting them on the bed. (It’s always funny whenever he looks at the books, puzzled, and starts his work.) You steal his computer sometimes, finding him new music and putting it on his iTunes whenever he feels sad. You make him tea whenever he has a cold and put his medicine on his nightstand so he never forgets to take it. You like this, taking care of him, even though he doesn’t see you. It makes you giggle every time he freaks out when he finds stuff out of place, but the way he likes it. You love the way he brightens up when he finds a new song on his playlist he’s never heard before and you feel warm all over when he learns it and sings it. You love the sighs of relief when he walks into his room and finds it all tidied up, escaping a huge lecturing from his mum. And you feel happy, yeah, happy. Happy that you’re helping him in some way. Happy that you’re still connected to him somehow. 

Harry’s sixteen now and he’s grown up so beautifully you feel proud, even though you’ve had nothing to do with it. He’s grown tall and handsome and his eyes are as green as ever and he’s letting his curls grow longer the way you think it looks best. He’s in a band now, White Eskimo, and he’s good. Oh, he’s bloody fantastic. You go to every one of his practices with his mates and go to every one of his presentations and watch as he gets better and better and better.

When nobody’s home, you like to watch telly in Harry’s room. That’s when you first see it, _the X Factor_. And you’re struck with an idea so perfect that you basically scream and squeal and jump all over Harry’s room and you maybe, maaaybe break his lamp but nobody really has to know. You simply _have_ to get him into the show. You have a feeling that it’s something that definitely _needs_ to happen but you’re not sure why.

You leave the telly on when Harry gets home, and watch him frown and move to turn it off but he stops. He stops and sits down on his bed and looks at the telly curiously. You grin from your usual seat by his window and see your plan unfold. 

Harry starts watching every episode of the show after that and you know, you know he’s contemplating auditioning and your plan is working. It’s amazing. You move on to the next phase of your plan then, leaving tabs open on his computer with the details of the Manchester open audition for series seven. You watch as he contemplates it, but he eventually closes the tabs and moves on. You promise you’ll try harder, and you do. You start leaving pamphlets and information and stuff lying around his room and you’re so happy, so so happy when he sits down for dinner with his mum and Gemma one night and he messes with his food nervously.

“Mum,” he says. “I--I think I wanna audition for the X Factor.”

Oh, your soul is soaring. You’re so happy you actually feel your feet leave the ground and fly around the dining room in glee. You’ve never been able to do that before, and it’s exhilarating. You watch as Anne smiles and listens to Harry go on about the show and the open auditions coming up in Manchester and asks her to take him and she says yes. 

The second week of July comes by faster than you expect. You watch Harry practise the song he chose, Stevie Wonder’s _Isn’t She Lovely_ and he’s so good. You’re so proud, and you’re so sure he’s got _it_ , the “x factor” or whatever. You’re so, so sure. 

You don’t let yourself drift the night before the drive to Manchester, checking and double-checking Harry's got everything he needs for the trip. You freak out and break his new lamp when it's thirty minutes past the time his alarm was supposed to go off. You see Harry startle awake and go into freak out mode himself. He starts screaming at Anne to wake up as he dresses himself, throwing on a white tee, a cardigan and a scarf even though it was a warm day out. You chuckle at your silly boy, thinking he looks good. You follow him as he throttles down the stairs with his bag and Anne's and slip into the car after him. 

You wish you could soothe his nerves. You can see how obvious it is, his anxiousness, as he is super jumpy all the way to Manchester. When you all get to Manchester Central, you can see how Harry's nerves have multiplied and you're almost floating. This is important, and you know it, you can feel it sizzling in your skin. You follow Harry as he registers himself and steps into the queue. 

You spend hours and hours under the sweltering sun, just sitting by Harry. And for the first time in many years, you wish he could see you. You wish he could hear you tell him he’s going to do great, that you’re sure of it as you have never been sure of anything before. You wish he could see you smile so hard and cry because you’re so happy when he gets through the producers’ auditions and you wish he could see you soar when he gets the judges’ yeses. When you’re finally coming down, you settle next to the stage, watching Harry as he hugs his mum and spins her around. You can’t stop grinning like an idiot, holy shit. 

You sigh and turn to the stage, away from Harry, and you freeze. You feel your entire being tense up and you realize it. This is why you’re here. You watch as a boy with amazing cheekbones and bright blue eyes sing his heart out and you feel your own chest contracting with feeling. And when the boy gets off stage after getting his own yeses and looks at Harry, you know. This is why you’re here.

You turn back to Harry who’s starting to make his way to the bathroom and you follow him in. You push the door open, not caring if someone looks at the door moving by itself, and stare at the empty mirror to wait him out. You sigh and turn to look at your feet and bite your lip. You can’t stop thinking about the boy or his sweet voice or the way that he looked at Harry after he was off stage. You can’t stop thinking that this is what you’re here for, this is what this feeling of anticipation has been leading up to. This boy, he’s important. And as you start wondering how the fuck are you gonna get them together, the very boy walks in the bathroom. 

You watch as he looks at his goofy smile in the mirror and chuckle to himself. He grips the counter really hard and he lets out another breathy laugh. He looks like he can’t believe his luck, and you’re smiling alongside him, thinking how perfect he is for your boy. That’s when Harry steps out of the bathroom stall and starts walking towards the sinks. You panic, and you always do stupid things when you panic. So you gather all your strength and you do it--you push Harry.

Harry looks surprised as he stumbles on top of the boy, who startles and frowns.

“Oops.”

“Hi.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Harry.”

“Louis.”

The boys look at each other and start laughing, and you soon join them. You feel yourself floating again as you shake with laughter and love and beginnings. You’re happy and full and amazing. And you wonder why others like you never choose humans to home in when it’s the best thing…

-

Fate seems to be with you, because even when your boys (as you had started to see Louis as your own, too) got rejected off boot camp, they had been stuck together in the same band. You are there as they cling to one another in glee, both in beanies and with an excitement so thick you can feel it in the air.

You are there as they tip-toe around each other, unsure of their feelings. And you are there when they need a small push (literal ones, once in a while. You’re glad to help out). You are there through the crushing disappointment they feel when they lose the _X Factor_ , but also during the incredible euphoria of their first single, their first number one, their first headlining concert. 

You are there when Louis crushes his lips against Harry’s for the first time, at the end of their first tour, both boys giggling and laughing between kisses and whispered I love yous. God, you are there, with a heart tight with sadness, when management closets their love, when times get rough, but you always watch them get their shit together.

You watch from afar when Louis proposes and Harry cries. You are there when they come out. You cry at their wedding. You watch their slow dancing sessions in the kitchen, the kisses they share while Harry cooks. You are there when Darcy is born, and you know right then that your home isn’t the green-eyed boy crying alone at a playground anymore but this wonderful little family that you love so, so much. 

You stop worrying about what happens after your home passes, you stop worrying about everything because you’re happy. And you don’t think anyone like you could ever be happy when they homed in houses. Even if it gets lonely sometimes, when you wonder if loving this family so much was worth it.

You are there when Harry sings Darcy to sleep, or when he tells her stories about the odd things that have happened to him in his life. He’s gotten used to it, things moving around, appearing when he needs them. He is convinced someone is watching over them, and he’s told Louis over the years, who always smiles and shakes his head every time but deep down, you knew he believes it too.

You are there when it clicks in Harry’s head. When Harry whispers your name after thirty years of silence, and he looks up and _sees_ you there with wide eyes and greying hair. He stands up with weak knees, sputtering and mumbling incoherencies. You giggle and smile as he reaches for you and you feel his electrifying touch in your shoulder.

“It was you,” he mumbles with awe. “It was you, you have always been here.”

You laugh and feel hot, real tears slip from your eyes. You feel his arms wrap around you, his head buried in the crook of your neck, his hair tickling your cheeks and you feel real, so real, as you haven’t in ages. And all those years, everything, all of it, it was all worth it--so, so worth it--as it led up to this moment.

“Yeah, Hazza,” you choke. “I’ve always been here.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading. (?) I hope this was okay (?)
> 
> you can find me on [tumblr.](http://queennstyles.tumblr.com).


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